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This paper views the growing popularity of death tourism which directs the confrontation with grief and mortality with the expressed purpose of orchestrating travel that culminates in assistance to end one's life. The specific aims of this paper are to describe the emerging phenomenon of death tourism and situate it as a form of dark tourism, to present briefly the social and legal aspects of assisted suicide in conjunction within the tourism industry, and to conclude with how the trend of death tourism is potentially spreading to other countries beyond Europe.

By employing a variety of primary and secondary resources, from death tourism industry documents, legal statutes, and news reports, this study explores the propositions of this article.

Whereas much of the contemporary research in dark tourism focuses on sights, experiences, and actual memorialization, death tourism tends to comprise a holistic view of the emerging phenomenon by viewing supply and demand management (and promotion), political interpretation and control. The final component of the paper views societal interpretations of death tourism and its potential for market expansion.

There have been several social movements and legislative attempts to curtail the spread of assisted suicide and death tourism; however, the demand for the services has grown to the point where jurisdictions are considering measures to allow this practice. Such an expansion of legalized assisted suicide will allow those seeking the right to die more options for a death within a diversified tourism industry.

Death tourism, within dark tourism, represents an emerging field with few academic resources. This paper works to conceptualize and clarify the unique place death tourism holds within tourism and dark tourism specifically.

The purpose of this paper is to address the knowledge gap in the field of dark tourism by understanding the phenomena of phoenix tourism, which focuses on the transformation and rebirth of places following death and disasters.

The paper builds on existing theoretical understanding of dark tourism and disaster recovery to explore destination image recovery within the tourism industry. It uses phoenix tourism as a lens to understand the social, cultural and economic context of post-disaster tourism destination recovery and rebranding in the aftermath of the Indian Ocean Tsunami and Hurricane Katrina.

A presentation of post-disaster strategies and recommendations are given with attention to the re-branding of images once associated with death and darkness to enhance a destination’s resilience.

For local policymakers, tourism leaders, researchers and community developers, this research describes strategies that facilitate rebranding dark tourism sites, such as areas of rebirth or “phoenix tourism”, to enhance destination recovery image and to promote a more disaster- and risk-resilient tourism industry.

This paper bridges the knowledge gap by defining and contributing to the theoretical understanding of phoenix tourism as it identifies the what, how and why elements of the phenomena of phoenix tourism. Furthermore, the authors propose how to overcome negative destination images to preserve, present or redefine an image of a tourist destination “overcoming”, and eventual “rebirth” serves to re-calibrate resilience of the tourism industry and regional redevelopment.